Four Peaks 5-8 2007 thru 5-11-2007

Picked up Connie at 8:30am Tues, made it to Rd 143 off of HWY 87 in good time. We did a lot of stop N go do to the great cactus & flower blooming heading up to the peaks. To my amazement the road was excellent. Even a car passed us going up

We made it to Lone Saddle Trail head in great time & found our camp spot for the next 2 nights with a perfect view of Roosevelt Lake & firewood at our campsite. By 11:30a.m. We had our tent set up & hit the road to find the North end of AZT going towards Sunflower, It took us 3X’s longer as the wildflower display just kept getting better on Rd 143 then on to FR422. Just past the El Oso mine we came a cross the funniest white tail deer that thought we could not see him (check out the pic’s) The AZT book was good & found trail 73 in the middle of no where, not much of a place to park the jeep. You can drive almost 11 miles of the Azt before it goes cross-country. We only hiked up .5 miles on this trail & found out it will be a challenge do to the terrain, very rocky, & cat claw everywhere, long pants a must & gaitors would not be a bad idea. A good hike for Nov if not Dec & start early, make sure maps & GPS near by as the trail is rough, overgrown in spots making carins hard to find.

            Time we got back to camp it was 5p.m., nice that it does not get dark till at least 8p.m. Had a bit of wine, I had rice & meatloaf that I warmed up over the fire. I had got up at 4:00a.m. So ready for bed by 9p.m. Connie stayed up to let the fire burn down. Slept good, a bit warm 52 degrees when I woke up. A car went by a 6a.m. to my surprise, but we were well hidden that know one knew we were there. By the time we had breakfast we got going by 8:15a.m. For a great hike from Pigeon springs to an unknown saddle 3.5 miles in to where Connie carried a gal of water to cache. The springs had water in them which was Pigeon, Bear, & Shake Spring.  The scenery was breath taking at times with the Roosevelt Lake in the back ground, large Ponderosa Pine & a great trail, again to my surprise.  We are hoping to do this hike in Oct/Nov. We cached our water, logged the location with the GPS, took pic’s, & headed back, as it was getting warm. Connie was back stepping real fast when we came up on a black rattlesnake (not Blacktail), I counted 12 buttons & it was coiled at least 3 times. It was not a happy camper. I did my best to convince him we were not there to hurt him we just need to get by on the trail, which we did accomplish (Check out the web’s pic of him). Not sure why we did make it make back in such good time as once we got to camp we had nats that loved our sweat!  Now I know why I see those funny looking hats in magazines with net around them. Found a knife, picked up a couple of nice rocks for Possum’s souvenirs. Supper was sausage, grilled zucchini, with the rest of my wine.